A dispiritingly bad Breton soccer team gets an assist from several washed-up sports stars in "The Dream Team," a mixed-bag attempt at mainstream comedy from Gallic director Olivier Dahan ("La Vie en rose").

A dispiritingly bad Breton soccer team gets an assist from several washed-up sports stars in “The Dream Team,” a mixed-bag attempt at mainstream comedy from Gallic director Olivier Dahan (“La Vie en rose”). The pic is stuffed with famous French faces, if not necessarily famous French feet, as the game footage keeps cutting between shots of upper and lower bodies. Each celebrity comedian provides a variation on his own shtick, with Dahan and the limping screenplay struggling to move away from the pic’s mini-showcases toward something akin to teamwork. Star power delivered socko results locally, with nearly 2.5 million admissions.

Fiftyish Orbera (Jose Garcia) is an alcoholic whose last shot at redemption involves convincing some equally down-and-out ex-colleagues to play for a Breton island that needs a big-money win to keep the local fishing cannery from closing. Franck Dubosc, Gad Elmaleh, Ramzy and “The Intouchables” thesp Omar Sy all do their familiar (occasionally) funny thing, though the only one who really convinces as more than a 2D caricature is rapper-turned-thesp Joeystarr (“Polisse”), conspicuously not a comedian. The story is as predictable as the tech credits are big-budget smooth.

The Dream Team

France

Production

A Warner Bros. Pictures France release of a Vito Films production, in association with Od Shots, TF1 Film Prod., with the participation of Canal Plus, Cine Plus, TF1. (International sales: Other Angle Pictures, Paris.) Produced by Isaac Sharry. Directed by Olivier Dahan. Screenplay, Philippe de Chauveron, Marc de Chauveron.